polite fiction: meaning & examples

Meanings:

• 1.

  General Englishformalneutral
  • A deliberately maintained falsehood or misleading explanation accepted by parties for the sake of civility, discretion, or social convenience.
  • An unspoken or acknowledged-to-be-false narrative preserved to avoid embarrassment, conflict, or discomfort.

  Examples

  Beta

  • They maintained the polite fiction that everything was fine in their marriage to avoid awkward questions from relatives.

    Mantuvieron la ficción educada de que todo estaba bien en su matrimonio para evitar preguntas incómodas de los familiares.

  • The company’s explanation for the product delay was a polite fiction accepted by customers to keep goodwill.

    La explicación de la empresa sobre el retraso del producto fue una ficción educada aceptada por los clientes para mantener la buena voluntad.

  • We all knew the promotion was a polite fiction designed to make the employee feel valued, even though the salary did not change.

    Todos sabíamos que la promoción era una ficción educada diseñada para hacer que el empleado se sintiera valorado, aunque el salario no cambiara.

  • During the meeting, they agreed to a polite fiction about the project’s progress to keep investors calm.

    Durante la reunión, acordaron una ficción educada sobre el progreso del proyecto para mantener tranquilos a los inversionistas.